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Sunday, October 06, 2013

Samsung Lays Best Buy Acquisition Rumors To Rest

Earlier this week rumors surfaced that Samsung may be looking to further its partnership with Best Buy. Perhaps going so far as acquiring a major stake in the company. Today Samsung has laid all those rumors to rest with a blog posting on their Samsung Tomorrow Blog.

The rumors and speculation followed a Korea Times report (which now appears to be offline) Samsung vice chairman Lee Jae-yong said that he “recently met with senior executives at Best Buy and discussed pending business issues.” Analyst firm HMC Securities quickly jumped to conclusions and claimed this includes a proposed investment deal, since it claims Samsung “has been considering increasing subsidies paid to BestBuy.”

Samsung shot that suggestion down in a brief post on its blog:

In the past few days, there have been reports that 'Samsung is considering to acquire stakes in Best Buy'. Please take note that these rumors are not true. There have been no talks whatsoever regarding stock acquisition of either company.

While it now appears that the acquisition rumors may have been false the question still stands as to what the two companies may have been in talks over. Back in April of this year Samsung announced a relationship with Best Buy that resulted in Samsung Experience Shops being installed in over 1,400 Best Buy stores. The newest speculation is leaning towards the two companies looking to build upon that relationship potentially adding in Samsung based shops for other Samsung products such as appliances, TVs, or more.